“Climate change, demographics, water, food, energy, global health, women's empowerment - these issues are all intertwined.
We cannot look at one strand in isolation. Instead, we must examine how these strands are woven together.”
UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, at COP 17 (Ban, 2011)
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) unanimously adopted in September 2015 at the UN General Assembly in New York mark a turning point in human development. The resolution on “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (UN GA, 2015) acknowledges, for the first time, that developed nations must act rapidly to protect the resilience of the Earth system while developing nations need to achieve a just and safe future for all with dignity and equity.
The 17 SDGs fully acknowledge the scientific advances of the last three decades: “The survival of many societies, and of the biological support systems of the planet, is at risk”
(UN GA 2015) The goals, based on the largest consultation in UN history and underpinned by Planetary Boundaries thinking, provide the vision for a grand transformation of societies. They provide an aspirational and holistic narrative for achieving the desired future and normative human development goals – a world free from hunger, injustice and absolute poverty, a world with universal education, health and employment with inclusive economic growth, based on transparency, dignity and equity. They also explicitly call for protection of the Earth system. It is in this sense that the goals are holistic and inclusive leaving no externalities outside the scope of transformative development.
The SDGs are indivisible and integrated (UN GA, 2015). They are also cumulative as the effort to achieve the 2030 Agenda must be sustained and this effort needs to be perceived as being irreversible. An accumulation of knowledge, capital, stable institutions and governance, and infrastructures is needed for the achievement of the 17 SDGs. So, there is a certain (implicit) organizing framework in the SDGs that indicates a fundamental paradigm shift in thinking about development (Figure 16), in which the economy and society are clearly articulated as being dependent upon sustainable stewardship of the Earth system (Rockström and Sukhdev, 2016). The SDGs acknowledge that based on current socioeconomic trends and technology use, the long-term stability of the Earth system is at risk. Put another way, the Earth system can no longer be viewed as an economic or social externality.
Achieving one SDG may contribute to achieving others, conversely there are many trade-offs. For example, achieving SDG 7, the energy goal, could jeopardize goals related to water, health and climate, but tackled in harmony these goals can support one another. In other words, all of the 17 aspirational goals should be achieved, for example, in such a way as to maximize synergies and minimize investment costs among many other salient considerations. A comprehensive scientific assessment of how this can be achieved and implemented is currently lacking. There are many interactions and the scope of these is unknown. This renders holistic policy making difficult. The goal of the new scientific initiative “The World in 2050” (Box 1) is to provide the fact-based knowledge to support the policy process and implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Figure 16 Categorization of the Sustainable Development Goals into three spheres: Earth system preconditions for development; social and economic systems as core means for delivery. Adapted from Rosktröm and Sukhdev, 2006.
The SDG credo, “leave no one behind” provides the framework for a new international social contract for the grand transformation of humanity to achieve a sustainable future.
We conclude that this also means that no SDG should be left behind. While the goals are very ambitious, tackling them together will help humanity make rapid progress and enter a new era of human societies and Earth systems. The SDG process, as well as the Paris Agreement, showcase what institutional international governance is able to achieve with joined forces. We have entered a new era of global governance which has done away with
BOX 1 The World in 2050 initiative.
The World in 2050 (TWI2050) is a partnership between science and policy that aims to develop equitable pathways to sustainable development within safe Planetary Boundaries. TWI2050 was launched by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), and the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC). It brings together leading policymakers, analysts, and modeling and analytical teams to collaborate in developing pathways toward sustainable futures and the policy frameworks required to achieve the needed transformational change.
TWI2050 aims to address the full spectrum of transformational challenges related to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change by using an integrated and systemic approach. The objective is to provide the science and policy for achieving SDGs in an integrated manner so as to avoid potential conflicts among the 17 goals and reap the benefits of the potential synergies of achieving them in unison. For example, there would be clear health benefits from a reduction in indoor and outdoor air pollution from global decarbonization if the two objectives were implemented in a manner that generates synergies and thereby also lowers costs. This kind of approach can in principle be generalized for achieving all 17 SDGs simultaneously.
mere top-down policy making in the goal-setting process. It also acknowledges the complexity and connectivity of human development and the Earth system by addressing global challenges. This is also the type of system we need during policy implementation on the ground to achieve the SDGs.
The SDGs and the 2030 Agenda have shown that all countries of the global community have come to a common understanding of the key global challenges, priorities and responsibilities for humankind. With this and their moral call for “global citizenship and shared responsibility,” the SDGs provide the legitimacy for a new notion of global commons when they “reaffirm that planet Earth and its ecosystems are our common home...” (UN GA, 2015).
3 The Global Commons in the Anthropocene
“What is needed, in effect, is an agreement on systems of governance for the whole range of so-called ‘global commons’.”
Pope Francis in Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si, 2015
As Earth reaches the limits of Earth system boundaries for interglacial equilibrium we argue that a narrow concept of the global commons is no longer sufficient. We consider also that all components of the planetary system not only interact with each other, but are also collectively affected by aggregate or cumulative impact from industrial societies – the Anthropocene Effect.2
At the heart of this discourse is planetary resilience. This new worldview is a necessary precondition for long-term abundance, equity and prosperity within Planetary Boundaries.
Decisions and actions made now relating to, for example greenhouse gas emissions, will have far-reaching implications tens of thousands of years from now on the Earth system.
Individuals, businesses, cities and nations have a new responsibility to consider the functioning and resilience of ecosystems and biomes across the entire planet as integral to their own long-term wellbeing and that of future generations. International approaches to problems and solutions must address the new reality. Without major economic, technological and political transformations Earth will leave the stability of the Holocene with deleterious consequences for many societies and even our global civilization. This is new knowledge established over the last three decades. This knowledge changes everything.
2In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by then Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, published “Our Common Future,” which argued that “The traditional forms of national sovereignty are increasingly challenged by the realities of ecological and economic interdependence. Nowhere is this more true than in shared ecosystems and in ‘the global commons’ – those parts of the planet that fall outside national jurisdictions”
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future. Available at: http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf..
International law identifies four global commons: the high seas; the atmosphere; Antarctica; and outer space, which are recognized as the common heritage of humankind IUCN, UNEP and WWF (1980) World Conservation Strategy. Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), UNEP Division of Environmental Law and Conventions Global Commons: UNEP. Available at: http://www.unep.org/delc/GlobalCommons/tabid/54404/
(Accessed: 28 July 2016.. In this context, the term “global” is taken to mean the human sphere or world and discussion focuses on exploitation rights.
We must now consider the Global Commons more than ever.
The Global Commons in the Anthropocene is a resilient and stable planet. This is our common heritage and every child’s birthright. This is now at risk.
In the Anthropocene, Global Commons are an integral part of the Earth system and can no longer be considered to be exogenous to human development and prosperity. The resilience of critical biomes, for example the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic, which are at risk of reduced functionality or changing state within the next few decades, must be protected.
This is a fundamentally new perspective. We all depend on a stable and resilient Earth system for our wellbeing, from individual households, communities and cities to nations and regions. This resilience can no longer be taken for granted.
In Table 3 we describe some of the most significant Global Commons in the Anthropocene – the biomes, biodiversity, and biogeochemical cycles that combine to form a dynamic equilibrium at the planetary scale. All commons are shared resources in which each stakeholder has an equal interest. Common-pool resources are resources where one person's use subtracts from another's use and where it is often necessary, but difficult and costly, to exclude other users outside the group from using the resource (Ostrom, 1990).
Local commons are, for example fishing grounds, grazing areas, irrigation systems, agriculture and forests. Global commons, for example include the atmosphere and high seas, areas that are recognized as falling beyond national jurisdiction. In the Anthropocene, we have to recognize the importance of the stability, resilience and functioning of the entire Earth system. Other commons are also important, such as microbial resistance and the global knowledge system, and the Anthropocene puts these in a new perspective, but they are beyond the scope of this analysis.
Commons such as the oceans, the atmosphere and Antarctica are not externalities of the global economic system; they are its foundation. Based on the proposal herein, in the Anthropocene, we can no longer consider Global Commons as external to our wellbeing and development. They are internal to human development.
This reflects a new worldview and puts the world in a better position to deliver global environmental sustainability, which is crucial for the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as the implementation of Aichi Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity and other international environmental agreements. This concept lies at the heart of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda, namely the achievement of inclusive social and economic development, and even of peace and security. It also illustrates our common responsibility to ensure that we have a resilient planet and resilient people. We argue that a broadly shared worldview acknowledging the Global Commons in the Anthropocene can support economic and governance transformations toward global sustainability
The Global Commons in the Anthropocene implies that all nation states have a domestic interest in safeguarding the resilience and stable state of all Global Commons, as this forms a prerequisite for their own future development, because losing the functions (e.g., carbon sinks, moisture feedback, biodiversity) of one can generate feedback that undermines the quality and function of critical systems, for example collapse of forests and ice sheets undermines regional and global climate systems). . Every nation should demand the right to shield critical biomes from external exploitation for the sake of providing the Earth
system with the ability to remain resilient and generate ecosystem functions and services for development.
Table 3 Global Commons in the Anthropocene.
Table 3 continued
The critical biomes (Figure 17) that regulate regional energy flows, hydrological flows, and carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles and provide stable habitats for living species are under threat. These biomes are interconnected with each other – moisture feedback from the Amazon rainforest affects the temperature and function of the tropical monsoon system, which in turn may interact with the global climate system. Critical biomes play a decisive role in regulating the overall status of the life-support system on Earth, that is, how well Earth can support world development. Significantly, the resilience of ecosystems, critical biomes, and the biosphere as a whole determines the degree of feedback (negative or positive, weak or strong) to the climate system, which regulates the degree of global warming, which in turn, generates a direct feedback to the biosphere, affecting all ecosystems. All Earth’s biomes are now influenced by human pressures (Barnosky et al., 2012, Williams et al., 2015, Lenton et al., 2007, Lenton and Williams, 2013) indeed, more than three quarters of the terrestrial biosphere has been transformed into what might be called anthromes – or anthropogenic biomes (Ellis 2013). In particular, the world’s grasslands and savannas have been transformed by human pressures, particularly agriculture, with severe impacts on biodiversity and other Earth system functioning. The management of these anthromes will be critical for long-term planetary stewardship.
We acknowledge the transient nature of definitions and that each concept is a child of its time. Here we have built upon existing concepts and hope that the Global Commons in the Anthropocene will provide a solid base for the next iteration. Humanity might decide to
expand the concept to “Planetary Commons”, as the common heritage of humankind and include “socioeconomic commons.” Also, as more knowledge becomes available and as human activities push further toward Planetary Boundaries, more commons may be identified.
Figure 17 Critical biomes that play a decisive role in regulating the overall status of the life-support system on Earth, i.e., how well Earth can support world development.
Rainforests (green), boreal forests (brown), atmosphere (red), cryosphere (blue), hydrosphere (purple).
4 Solutions for a Planet under Pressure
The following is an overview of the transformative nature of the changes needed to implement the proposed Global Commons in the Anthropocene, rather than detailed actions.
4.1 New Principles for Governing Global Commons in the Anthropocene